EMPEDOCLES' 
PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

In Its Original and in Its Traditional Setting 



BY 

WALTER VEAZIE, Ph.D. 

SOMETIME CUTTING TRAVELIiINQ PEIXOW 
OP COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



AECHIVES OF PHILOSOPHY 

EDITED BY 

FREDEEICK J. E. WOODBEIDGE 



No. 14, October, 1922 




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EMPEDOCLES' 
PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

In Its Original and in Its Traditional Setting 7 



- 7 

BY ( 

WALTER VEAZIE,' Pn.D. 

SOMETIME CUTTING TRAVELLING FELLOW 
OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 



^ARCHIVES OF PHILOSOPHY 

EDITED BY 

FREDERICK J. E. WOODBRIDGE 



No. 14, October, 1922 



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COLUMBIA TTNIVERSITY PRESS 
1922 






J Copyright, 1922 / 

BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS 



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PREFATORY NOTE 

Early Greek philosophy is studied altogether too much in a reverse 
direction ; a beginning is made with late historical accounts and then in 
their secondary light the earlier sources are interpreted. 

The method of this investigation is to begin with the fragments of 
Empedocles. Their terminology is collected, its interrelationships are 
examined, and analogies are traced in contemporary writings. The at- 
tempt is then made to determine just what Plato was attacking in certain 
of the Socratic arguments, and to find why he was not sympathetic to 
those viewpoints. We will thus be in a position to show the irrelevancies 
of the setting in which Aristotle and his successors tried to record or 
ridicule the early naturalistic philosophy. * 

The purpose is as much negative as positive, i.e. to determine what 
part of the tradition belongs to the recorders rather than to the early 
Greeks. 

The writer is indebted to Professor Frederick J. E. Woodbridge for 
the general conceptions of Greek philosophy, for much of the method, 
and above all for the inspiration which he has derived from Professor 
Woodbridge's lectures and seminar at Columbia. His gratitude is also 
due to Professor John J, Coss for many helpful suggestions and for 
the great interest he has shown in the writer's work for a number of 
years. 

It is also the author's wish to express at this time his thanks to the 
founder of the William Bayard Cutting Travelling Fellowships and to 
the Trustees of Columbia University for the opportunity afforded him 

of studying in England. 

Walter Veazie 

Columbia University, 

May, 1917. 



Digitized by the Internet Archive 
in 2011 with funding from 
The Library of Congress 



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CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

I. Introduction 1 

II. The Fragments 4 

III. Plato 9 

IV. Aristotle and Theophrastus 15 

V. The Doxographers 18 

VI. Summary 26 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTION 

" Some physicians and sophists," writes Hippocrates,^ "say that no 
one can know medicine who is ignorant as to what man is, how he first 
came to be, and whence he was originally compounded and that whoever 
would cure men properly must learn this. But this doctrine belongs 
rather to philosophy, as e.g., Empedocles and others who have written 
Ilepl (f>vaio<:, ' 

To understand Empedocles' conception of psychical processes one 
must get at his conception of a living being and this in turn is founded 
on his cosmic philosophy. 

In another place ^ I have discussed the general question of the under- 
lying conception of early Greek philosophy and the present work is in 
a sense a special application of this study. We determined there that in 
the search for <f)vcn<i the early naturalistic philosophers were not primarily 
interested in " matter," but for that in the universe which, in Aristotle's 
language, " in its primary and strict sense is the essence (oiaia) of 
those things which have in themselves per se a source of motion " 
(Metaph. A, iv), what it is that makes things " get a move on." 
^ This procedure had at first taken the form of explaining cosmic 
origins from the standpoint of generation,^ but absolute beginnings were 
totally inconceivable to the philosophies of Empedocles' time, so that 
Empedocles faced the problem of accounting for plurality and trans- 
formation or motion in an eternal universe. 

The orthodox modern account of Empedocles' philosophy, which we 
inherit from Zeller, attributes to him a conception of " matter and 
energy " somewhat resembling that of our nineteenth century physics, 
upon which is vaguely reared a crude materialistic doctrine of sensa- 
tion. Perhaps the most precise statement of this interpretation is that 
given by Windelband.^ With respect to Empedocles' general position 
Windelband writes, " He was the first in whose theory force and matter 
are differentiated as separate cosmic powers. Under the influence of 

1 On ancient med., 20 : ed. Kvehlewein. 

2 " The Meaning of <pi'(ns in Early Greek Philosophy," Stiidie.^ in the History 
of Ideas, edited by the department of philosophy of Columbia University, Vol. I, 
1918, p. 27. 

3 Cf. F. J. E. Woodbridge, " The Dominant Conception of Early Greek 
Philosophy," Philosophical Review, Vol. X, 1901. 

4 History of Ancient Philosophy, 1899, pp. 74, 78. 



2 EMPEDOCLES PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRHSTE 

Parmenides he had accordingly so conceived the world-stuff that the 
ground of motion could not be found in it itself," 

With regard to psychical processes Windelband considers that : " It 
is of especial interest that he conceived the process of perception and 
sensation as analogous to his universal theory of the interaction of 
elements. He explained this process as contact of the small parts of 
the perceived things with the similar parts of the perceiving organs, 
wherein the former were supposed to press upon the latter, as in hear- 
ing; or the latter upon the former, as in sight. . . . Hence it follows for 
Empedocles that all perceptual knowledge depends upon the combination 
of elements in the body and especially in the blood, and that the spiritual 
nature depends on the physical nature." 

In contradistinction to this current interpretation we maintain that 
Empedocles was dealing, both cosmologically and anthropologically, 
with a problem of ^uVts and that he was looking for those features of 
things which would account for their present development; for that 
aspect of the world at large which has in itself the power of motion, or 
development, and for the natural source of life and thought in man. 

For Empedocles all things in the universe are a combination of the 
six elements — air, earth, fire, water, love, and hate. Just what is the 
relation of the last two to the others is not altogether clear. According 
to Tannery,^ " ne sont nullement des forces abstraites ; ce sont simple- 
ment des milieux doues de proprietes speciales et pouvant se deplacer 
I'un I'autre, milieux au sein desquels sont plongees les molecules cor- 
porelles, mais qui d'ailleurs sont congus comme tout aussi materiels que 
Tether imponderable des physiciens moderns, avec lequel ils presentent 
la plus grande analogic." 

Empedocles apparently recognized as the great motive force the 
attraction of like for like. " L'attraction des semblables n'est pas, chez 
I'Agrigentin, une force abstraite transcendantalement ; c'est une pro- 
priete immanente a la matiere " (I.e., p. 309). 

From a universe of elements having this source of motion in itself, 
the world and its inhabitants " live and move and have their being." 
A man or an animal is a definite, organic complex. A man has in him- 
self this source of motion and in his surroundings the conditions thereof. 
Psychical processes are activities occasioned by the meeting of the 
organism with its cognate environment. It is an activity latent in the 
elements and complex structure of the man, determined by the nature 
of his sense organs and " central nervous system," causing him to react 
to certain conditions. The organic structure of the man is the determin- 
ing factor along with the immanent tendency to motion. 

The individual organs of perception were involved in the discussion 

5 La Science Hellene, 1887, p, 306, 



INTRODUCTION 3 

and what chiefly troubled the ancient commentators was the so-called 
relation or perception of like by like in these special cases. It was not 
recognized that they are here discussing organs and that the attraction 
of like to like, in so far as it may have figured, was the starting to 
activity, the bringing into relation of the organism to the object through 
physical contact set up by way of the organ. The famous fragment (84) 
of Empedocles on the structure of the eye is obviously a discussion of 
the problem of obtaining a connection between the object and the eye. 

Subsequent Greek philosophers and historians of philosophy, in giv- 
ing their account of this naturalistic psychology, rewrote it into the 
language and doctrines of their own or contemporary systems and made 
nonsense of most of it. Plato alone took the position seriously and 
with some appreciation, and it is from his controversy that most is to 
be learned. 

Some light is thrown on the subject by examination of the genuine 
works of Hippocrates who was bred in the tradition and was in a high 
degree capable of appreciating it. It is also in this connection interest- 
ing to note that, although all traces of the meaning of the early view 
have died out in philosophical literature by the time of Theophrastus, 
they apparently survived to an extent in Galen, the physician (second 
century, A.D.).^ 

6 Cf. Chauvet, La philosophie des medecins grecs, p. 367 sq. (iV. B. p. 371). 



CHAPTER II 

THE FRAGMENTS 

For Empedocles vorjixa is in, or is the blood about the heart (Fr. 105) 
and is shared by all things along with ^p6vr}Gi<i (Fr. 110). To (f)povelv 
is by the will or pleasure of chance (Fr. 103) and along with the feeling 
of pleasure and pain is from the elements, including love and strife (Fr. 
107.) To <t)povelv different things lies in growing to be different 
(Fr. 108), while to (jipovelv cj)i\a and " accompHsh friendly(?) works'* 
is by f^iXoT-q (Fr. 17). 

^p6vr)(n<i and vo-qixa, I submit, are used more or less synonymously 
and the meaning of these words is something far more elemental and 
general than our word " thought." Such is the meaning and use of 
<j>p6vr](n^ in the Hippocratic treatise On the sacred disease'^ which is 
summed up by Foesius^ thus : " (^p6vrj<ji<; signifies wisdom, but is used 
for sense {sensus^ or senstivity [sentiendi vis] in the book On the 
sacred disease (p. 125, 10 [ed. Bebelii, Basil, 1538]). Kat oww t^v 
4>p6vr)atv Kal ttjv KLvrjcriv Tolai /AcAecri Trapiyti, ' and thus it imparts sense and 
motion to the members.' It arises from the air and breath which^ 
coming into the lungs, is dispersed through the veins and gives sense 
and motion to the members. On the other hand, when it is excluded 
from the veins and lungs by phlegm, the man is deprived of speech and 
is benumbed, i.e., is without sense and motion." 

Empedocles was not quite so advanced in his physiology, but the 
placing of sensibility in the flowing blood, traveling to all parts of the 
body, is a very similar theory — and one, by the way, with a large family 
tree. 

In Hippocrates ^p6vricn<i is supplied to the brain by air and from it 
along with motion to the body through the arteries and veins. That is, 
the anatomical apparatus involved is the same, although the mediating 
stuff is in the one case air, in the other blood and the seat for one the 
brain, for the other the heart. In Empedocles all things have a share 
of <f)p6v7)(n<s and it is by all that we partake thereof (Fr. 107). It is 
connected with the feeling of pleasure and pain and by (ptXoTr) we 
^povovfiev ^i\a (Fr. 17), "have yearning feelings" and "accomplish 
the coordinate deeds." So in Hippocrates, motion is a concomitant of 
(j)p6v7)(jL'i and it is from the brain that (p. 609, 1, 11 sq.) "we have 

7 Kiihn, Vol. I (i.e. XXI of series), pp. 596, 600, 601, 609, sq. 

8 Oeconomia Hipp, alpha, serie, A. Foesio, Basil, 1518; Art. (ppdvrjcris. 



THE FRAGMENTS 5 

pleasures, glad thoughts, wailings, feeling {(f>povelv), perception (votlv), 
sight, hearing, the knowing (yiv^aKew) of the ugly and the beautiful, 
the bad and the good, discriminating some by custom, others perceiving 
(al<j6dvea6ai.) , by their usefulness." 

For Empedocles the senses are " instruments " or " powers " 
{iraXdixai) spread over the body {Fr. 2), "openings" (Tropot) into 
TO voyjaai {Fr. 4), "highroads" (ajua|tTos) into the 4>py]v. Hippocrates 
says {I.e., p. 612), " the air suppHes cj)p6vrjm^ to the brain, while the eyes, 
ears, tongue, hands, and feet work hard to supply those things which 
the brain utilizes (ytvoio-Ki/)," 

Hippocrates gives us in this treatise, On the saered disease, an elabo- 
rate description of the changes in the brain such as overheating or cool- 
ing, superabundance of moisture, ete. He is here chiefly concerned with 
mania, but in the work Concerning airs, zvaters and places he makes the 
more general statement : " With respect to the lack of spirit and coward- 
liness of the men, the main causes of the Asiatics being less warlike and 
of a milder character than the Europeans are the seasons whose 
temperature variations are slight and constant. Thus there are no 
irritants for the mind {yvwfxr]) nor any marked changes of the body 
from which the disposition would be rendered wild (Kiihn, Vol. I, 
p. 553)." In fragment 108 Empedocles says that "in so far as men 
grow to be different, so far it is in their power to (j)povelv other things." 

Hippocrates passes here from the field of simple sensation or sensi- 
bility and so also this last statement of Empedocles introduces us to a 
broader field. 

First, " one is convinced only of that which he chances upon" {Fr. 2) ; 
"wisdom grows in men by experience," (literally, "according to what 
is before them " {Fr. 106) ; and " everything irtf^pov-qKev by the will of 
chance" {Fr. 103). 

Secondly, " wisdom," or teaching, is said to " grow into the ^(9o9, 
where is each man's <^wt? " {Fr. 110). Now each of the elements, in- 
cluding love and strife, is said {Fr. 17^9) "to have its own value 
(rt/nr/) and vfio'; and to gain the upper hand in its turn as time revolves." 
$v(n5, as we quoted before, " in its primary and strict sense is the essence 
of those things which have in themselves per se a source of motion." 
Empedocles in fragment 8 contends that there is no </)xW of mortal things, 
but only mixing and dissolution, " but it is called <^wW among men." 
So in fragment 110, when he says the (jbwt?, or vital force of men lies in 
the TjOo'i, we will be disposed to connect this y]do'i in some way with 
"mixing and dissolution." The force does not lie primarily in the mixture 
but in the elements. Wherefore his protest against the use of the term. 

The rjOo^ or character of a mixture would consist in its form. Now 
turn to fragment 125: "Changing their forms (eiSea), he made dead 



6 EMPEDOCLES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

from living"; and fragment 137: "The foolish father, praying, takes 
his own son in changed form {ixopcj>rj) and slays him," I do not mean to 
infer that etSea and ^^os are synonymous terms for Empedocles, but that 
they represent different phases of the same general idea. We note here 
that in fragment 20 of the parts (yvla) of men are said to be made one by 
love and in fragment 107 : " All things, fitted into order from these 
[i.e. the elements], are made solid and by these they (^poviovai and feel 
pleasure and pain," 

Certain parallels may be traced in other of the early Greeks. 
Diogenes of Apollonia, a forerunner of Hippocrates, uses (j^povyjms in 
much the same way as Empedocles uses vorjfjia and Hippocrates ^povrjm^ 
— not for " intelligence," as is generally translated, though it may 
include his idea of " intelligence." In fragment 4 we find : " For men 
and other animals who breathe live by the air which is il/vxv and vot^o-is 
to them, as will be made plain in the following account. If the air is 
taken away, they die and their vo-qafs is left behind." Fragment 5 : "It 
seems to me that voT/o-ts is the so-called air. . . . Air, which is hotter 
than that outside in which we are, but much cooler than that near the 
sun, is the xj/vxv of all animals. This is not alike in diiTerent animals, 
nor indeed in two different men. However, it does not differ greatly 
but according as they are more or less alike. Differentiated things can 
not, indeed, be exactly like one another until they become the same, 
but as there are many kinds of differentiation, so there are many 
and different kinds of animals, resembling one another neither 
in mode of life (SiWa) nor vorjms through the great number of differenti- 
ations. Nevertheless, all by the same thing live and see and hear and 
have their other voijais from this." 

Heraclitus' use of 7J6o<s, though literary and loose, is interesting. 
Fragment 119: rj6o<i avdpMino Sal/xwv and fragment 78: ^^os yap 
av6pw7r€iov /xev ovk e^ei yvw^as, 6elov 8e e'x^'' 

Philolaos in fragment 13 points out the connection between voijs and 
iyKe^aXo?. Hippocrates (I.e., p, 612, 613) combats the error of those 
who have assigned the functions of the brain to the heart or diaphragm. 

The whole line of thought and most of the terms come out all together 
in fragment 16 of the second part of Parmenides' poem : 

u)S yap tKaaTOT e'^ct /cpao-ts [xeXewv TToXvrjdfnrTwv, 
Tws voos avupuiTTOicn TrapecrTrjKev to yap avTO 
ccTTiv orrep ^poveet /xeAewv ^vai<s avB^poWoiaiv 
Kai iravTi ' to yap ttXcov Iutl vorj/xa 

" For just as is the union of twisted ( ?) parts in each case, 
so voos is present to men. For the ^wts of the parts 
in men, one and all, is the same as that which thinks. 
For excess (?) is vorfpu." 



THE FRAGMENTS 7 

In this fragment the connection of ^uW and Kpaats is obvious, while 
^vVt?, as " that which cjjpoveei," must be some power or force lying and 
having its source in the fieXea, i.e. in this instance in their constitution or 
Kpdms. Further, the connection of voos with the 0vW, Kpams and 
^e'Aea in this way indicates that it is intended to cover more elemental 
phases of psychosis than merely intelligence. NoVa is the term we 
found in Empedocles, To TrAeov accords with the basis in physiological 
change that we have been discussing. 

We come now to a further development. There are three words in 
Empedocles which are certainly synonyms, i.e. (ppqv (Fr. 3, 23^, 114, 
133, 134, 17", 15),9a7rAa7X'^a {Fr. 5), TrpaTTtSe? (Fr. 8), while voo? (Fr. 
2®, 1721, 136) is probably equally so. 

This (fyprjv, etc. is that into which sight, touch and the other senses 
are " highways " (Fr. 133) and is accordingly the place where whatever 
travels along these highways is " kept." Empedocles has no word for 
memory, but in fragment 3 is the expression, " to keep or hide in a 
dumb <f>pr]v " and in fragment 17 that " learning increases the (/)/oevas." 
Accordingly, to voo'; is attributed "carelessness" (Fr. 13). ^prjv may 
be "surpassed" by "fraud" (Fr. 23^), opposed by "truth" ( ?) 
(Fr. 114) and is where one " surmises " (Fr. 15). By the o-TrAayKva we 
"divide a Aoyos " (Fr. 5).i° By the v6o<i we may "contemplate 
(SepKeadat) love " (Fr. 17^1), and try to "comprehend" 
(■jrepiXafi^dveLv) (Fr. 2®). A prophet "strains" to see the future with 
the TrpairiSe's (Fr. 129. Fragment doubtful?) and finally God is a 
"sacred and unspeakable 4>pw" (^^- 1-^4). 

In connection with " comprehension " cf. Hippocrates (Kiihn, I, 612), 
cs Se T7/V cruveatv 6 cyKcc^aAos ccttiv 6 Siayye'AAwv The bram IS the mes- 
senger to the understanding." Sreyacrat, " to keep," SepKcaOai, " to look 
at," "contemplate," 7reptAa;u,/3amv, "to get possession of by seizing 
round," Biarix^yew, " to divide," are the terms which may be said to 
represent the higher modes of mentality for Empedocles. 

Significantly the Hippocratic word for the whole process is truVtats, 
" a joining together." " I think," he says, " that the brain has the 
greatest power in men, for this is the interpreter to us of those things 
which come from the air when the brain is healthy. . . . The 
brain is the messenger to the understanding " (Kiihn, I, p. 612). 

We have already quoted above the list of the things which arise from 
the brain, i.e., pleasures, glad thoughts,' etc. In short the brain receives 
that from the outside world upon which it reacts with reference to its 
being pleasant or unpleasant, good or bad. 

9C/. Hippocrates (Kuhn, I, p. 612), "The Diaphragm has obtained the 
name <ppeves from accident, as it possesses no such quality." 
10 With MSS. and Burnet, not accepting Diels' correction. 



8 EMPEDOCLES PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

After the same manner, I think, we may interpret Empedocles. 
Beings are things put together in certain ways in virtue of which way 
they do certain actions when brought into contact with other things. 
Their <^i»o-t?, or source of activity, lies immediately in their character as 
compounds, ultimately in the character of their elements. Two elements 
vv^ill react to each other's nature or character; compounds will react in 
a compound fashion. Men are things put together in very complicated 
ways and react in very complicated ways to very complicated circum- 
stances ; even the nature of God consists in the form of the universe 
as, spherical and round, he sits " rejoicing in his circular solitude." 

The eyes, ears, etc., are the way of approach into man's nature which 
in its intricate fashion receives, passes around, separates and combines 
and reacts against the force (impression) of the outside intruder. 
'Reception is one side of the process, reaction the other. We are told 
to " contemplate " love, and then again love is said to " accomplish " 
works in us. Mentality is a process accompanied by feeling toward 
its object, that is, by pleasure and pain. Increase of knowledge from 
what is accessible to the powers of man is one half of his teaching, 
action the other half. But (Fr. 135) : 

" That which is lawful for all stretches continuously 
throughout the wide ruling air and the boundless light." 

These activities do not go on haphazard; there is order in the 
universe so that things move regularly and certainly and we may learn 
thereof " as much as human cleverness can bring to light." Law 
shows no mercy, <xapts>o'TU7eet SvarXyjrov 'AvdyKTjv (Fr. 116), and even 
the gods are bound by the " great oath " which reminds us of Heraclitus 
and his " Erinyes, the handmaidens of justice," who police the heavens 
and keep the sun in his place. Strife acts in a time set by this mighty 
oath (Fr. 30). 

Aristotle brings the charge against Empedocles' system that it is not 
able to give an account of error, but the avenues through which 
external things affect a man are " circumscribed " (Fr. 2) and error 
consists in partial knowledge with its consequent misreaction. A 
" wise man " is one who can see as much as ten or twenty generations 
(Fr. 129). We know by "chance" (Fr. 103) who is a goddess of 
error, while the test of truth or error is the good or bad results which 
may ensue to us. " Happy is the man who has acquired the riches of 
divine understanding; wretched the one who harbors an obscure 
opinion of the gods " (Fr. 132). 



CHAPTER III 

PLATO 

Plato's psychology was built up to support two fundamental interests : 
his theory of knowledge and his ethical philosophy, including in both 
cases the question of the immortality of the soul. Accordingly he 
needed a metaphysical psychology radically different from that of his 
predecessors, but we can gather from his criticisms of other psycho- 
logical theories several points which will shed light on the philosophies 
that went before. 

Plato undertook to deduce the soul from cosmic organization (i.e., 
the existence of a world soul) in much the same way as his predecessors 
had done from ^tjctiv, but he was troubled with how to account for 
judgments of truth and falsehood in terms of activity or motion. It 
would seem that he thought very much in these terms himself. 

The tenth book of the Laws, undertaking to prove the existence of 
the gods so as to have some ultimate basis for law and right, gives a 
clear presentation of the relation between Plato's cosmic soul and the 
naturalistic philosophers' understanding of </)TJcrts together with the 
derivative origin and nature of individual living beings.^ ^ 

Ath. But then again, tell me, Cleinias — for it is necessary that 
you be a partner to this discussion — perhaps it is possible that 
the one who says this thinks fire, water, earth and air are the most 
primitive of all things and calls these four ^vo-ts while he looks 
upon the soul as a later development from these. Rather it seems 
that this is not a mere possibility, but that he thus actually 
demonstrates this to us in his argument. . . . 

Nearly all of them, my friends, are perhaps ignorant of what 
sort the soul is and of the power which it has and of other facts 
about it, especially its origin that it is among the most primitive 
things, generated before all bodies and rather than the latter orig- 
inates all their changes and rearrangements. Now if this is so 
and the soul is older than the body, is it not necessary that what 
appertains to the soul be before what appertains to the body? 

CI. It is necessary. 

Ath. Then opinion, conscious direction, reason, art, and law 
will antedate the hard, the soft, the heavy, and the light. Indeed 
the o-reat primitive works and acts will be those of art for these are 
first, whereas the works pertaining to ^iW and </>v(7t? itself — 

11 Burnet's edition, Oxford, N. D., 891B. 



10 EMPEDOCLES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

although the word is incorrectly applied by them to these things — 
will be later and controlled by art and reason. 

CI. How is it incorrectly used? 

Ath. They wish to say that <^wts is the productive cause 
(yeVeo-t?) of first things, but if it is evident that the soul is primitive 
and arose among primitive things and not fire or air, then more 
truly it would be said that the soul is by ^wts. Such is true, if you 
prove that the soul is older than the body, but not otherwise (892A). 

As the Athenian proceeds to argue (895A) : 

If all things were together in a state of inactivity, as the majority 
of such thinkers presume to say, which of the above-mentioned 
motions must first arise among these things ? Self -movement must 
indeed arise, for by no means could things be altered by something 
else, if no change had previously arisen within themselves. 

This self-moving power he calls " life " which is the sign of the 
presence of a " soul." 

The ultimate source of activity according to his predecessors had 
lain in the cosmic elements, i.e., " the roots of things." Motion and its 
source are where they are found — in things. It is found first in 
its simplest, not in its most complicated form. " Manners, characters, 
wishes, reasonings," etc., Plato says, " are prior to length, breadth, 
etc., ... of bodies, if soul is prior to body," which would be a 
very good reason to Empedocles for saying that soul was not prior. 
These things are not actually found in nature first but last; they are 
the activities of organic beings. 

In the Theaetetus we have a controversial discussion of the problem 
of knowledge. Socrates elicits first the definition, " Knowledge is 
nothing else than sense perception" (151E), and identifies this with 
the famous adage of Protagoras (152A) : " Man is the measure of 
all things, of the things which are, that they are, and of things which 
are not, that they are not." 

But, continues Socrates (152D), by the Graces, was not 
Protagoras, who was all-wise, telling riddles to the common herd 
like us while he told the truth in secret to his disciples. 

TJieaet. What account then would you give of the matter, 
Socrates ? 

Soc. I shall speak of a by no means unimportant doctrine 
according to which nothing exists of itself [alone]. You may not 
rightly denominate anything as such and so, but if you speak of 
anything as large, it appears also as small, and if heavy, also as 
light and so on, so that nothing is of any particular sort, but from 
transposition, change, and admixture arise all things which we 
incorrectly say exist for nothing at any time exists, but everything 



PLATO 1 1 

is always becoming. On this doctrine all the philosophers suc- 
cessively — except Parmenides — are in agreement: Protagoras, 
Heraclitus, and Empedocles ... 

Then again (156A) : 

Their principle, on which everything we have just mentioned 
depends, is that everything is motion and that there is nothing 
except this. Of this motion there are two kinds, both infinite in 
extent, one active, the other passive. From the union of these 
two motions and from their rubbing against one another arise a 
limitless progeny which is in turn two-fold, i.e., the object of sensa- 
tion and sensation which always breaks out and arises together with 
the object of sensation. . . . 

But note the conclusion. The attempt was to explain that all 
these things were, as we said, in motion and that the movement 
was either rapid or slow. Whatever is slow exercises its motion 
on itself and against things near it and in this manner begets. 
[Text which follows is corrupt. Cousin conjectures ^^ • g^ q^g ^e 
qui est ainsi produit a plus de lenteur : qu'au contraire, ce qui se 
meut rapidement, deployant son movement sur les objets plus 
eloignes, produit d'une maniere different, et que ce qui est ainsi 
produit a plus de vitesse, car il change de place dans I'espace et son 
movement consiste dans la translation.] Whenever then the eye 
and some other thing fitting it are near together there arises white- 
ness and the cognate sensation which did not arise from either of 
these going to the other thing. Then these two moving through 
the intervening space — i.e., the " visual image " ^^ to the eyes and 
the whiteness to that which conjointly produces the color — then 
the eye is filled with the visual image (oi/^ts) and becomes not an 
image but a seeing eye, while the object which cooperates in form- 
ing the color is filled with whiteness and becomes not whiteness but 
white whether wood or stone or whatever thing happens to be 
colored with this color. And the same follows for the other sensa- 
tions as the hard, the warm, et a!.; nothing is of itself, as we said 
above, but ail things of all kinds arise in their intercourse with one 
another by motion since, as they say, it is not possible to think of 
the agent and patient as separate existences. The agent is nothing 
until it is joined with that which receives the action, nor the patient 
before its union with the agent. That which is an agent in contact 
with one thing appears as patient with another. And thus from all 
this argument, as I said in the first place, it results that nothing is 
one of itself, but is always becoming something. Being should 

12 Oeuvres de Plafon, tome 2, 1852, p. 77. Cf. however Burnet's text. 

13 "O^is, for the meaning of which cf. 193B : " False judgment only remains in 
the following case: whenever, knowing both you and Theodorus and having 
the impression (arifiela) of both of you in the wax as of a signet ring and not 
seeing you sufificiently well on account of the distance, I endeavor to assign the 
impression of each to its proper visual image (o-^is), fitting it and adjusting it 
to the traces [which it has previously left] in order that recognition may come 
about, ..." 



12 EMPEDOCLES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

be entirely disposed of, although we have been compelled already 
many times to use this word from custom and ignorance. It is not 
necessary, according to the learned, to allow either the word 
" something " or " of something " or " of me " or " this " or " that " 
or any other name which indicates permanence, but rather Kara 
(t)vaiv to say things come to be, act, perish, and metamorphose and, 
if anyone gives permanence to anything in his discourse, he is easily 
refuted. It is necessary to speak thus both of individuals and 
aggregates such as are presented in " man," " stones," or a par- 
ticular animal or species. 

This last definition of man as an aggregate, which Kara (f>v<nv is 
changing its form (157B), corresponds with what we said in connec- 
tion with fragment 8 of Empedocles regarding man's ^ij'ats as the form 
of the mixture. 

But Socrates continues (157E) : 

Now let us not neglect what remains of this doctrine. For it 
remains to speak of dreams, diseases, and of madness especially, and 
what are called illusions of hearing, sight, and other mistakes of 
sensation for you know that in all these cases this seems to be a 
recognized refutation of the doctrine we have just expounded. 

The defense which the champions of " appearance " would advance 
Socrates imagines as follows (158E) : 

May that which is in every respect other, Theaetetus, have in any 
way any power similar to that possessed by its opposite ? And note 
that we do not ask in regard to a thing partly the same and partly 
different, but of that which is entirely other. 

Theaet. If anything is altogether different, it is impossible that 
it should have any similarity to its opposite either in power or any 
other way. 

Soc. And then it must be admitted to be different, must it not? 

Theaet. So it seems to me. 

Soc. If then it happens that anything becomes like or unlike 
either itself or something else, in so far as it is the same we say 
it is like and in so far as it is different we say it is unlike. 

Theaet. Necessarily. 

Soc. Have we not said before that there are an infinite number 
of agents and also of patients? 

Theaet. Yes. 

Soc. And that they come into connection at one time with one 
thing and at another time with another and in the different con- 
nections different results arise? 

Theaet. Certainly. 

Soc. Let us speak then in this way of you and me and other 
things as, for example, of Socrates well and Socrates sick. 



PLATO 13 

Theaet. In speaking of Socrates sick you mean Socrates as a 
whole and similarly of Socrates well, do you not? 

Soc. You have understood me very well ; I said exactly that. 

Theaet. They are certainly unlike. 

Soc. And therefore, since they are unlike, they are other, 

Theaet. Necessarily. 

Soc. And would you say the same Socrates sleeping and of all 
the other states of which we have already treated? 

Theaet. I should. 

Soc. Is it not true that each of the things whose nature it is 
to do something whenever they encounter Socrates well act differ- 
ently towards me than when encountering me sick? 

Theaet. How else could it be? 

Soc. And I who am the patient and that which is the agent will 
produce a different result in each of the cases. 

Theaet. Yes. 

Soc. Whenever I, being in health, drink wine it appears 
pleasant and sweet? 

Theaet. Yes. 

Soc. For, as we acknowledged before, the agent and the patient 
produce sweetness and a sensation, both being in motion together 
and the sensation being carried to the patient, produces a sensing 
tongue and the sweetness, carried to and about the wine makes the 
wine both to be and to appear sweet to the healthy tongue. 

Theaet. It has already been acknowledged by us to be thus. 

Soc. But when I am sick, does it not in truth act upon another 
and not the same person, for it affects one who is different? 

Theaet. Yes. 

Soc. For Socrates in such a condition [sick] in combination 
with the drink of wine produces a different result, i.e. a sensation 
of bitterness arises in and is carried about the tongue and bitter- 
ness arises in the wine and this latter becomes not bitterness but 
bitter and I not a sensation but a sensing [man] . 

Theaet. Certainly. 

Soc. Having sensation in this way I shall not become some- 
thing different, for another sensation would be of another thing 
and another thing would make the one sensing different. Nor can 
that which produces this effect in me, encountering another person, 
produce the same effect in him for the different factors will pro- 
duce a different result and the agent become different. 

Theaet. That is true. 

Soc. I am not then of myself in a certain state, nor is that 
which affects me of itself in a certain state. 

Theaet. Indeed not. 



14 EMPEDOCLES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

Soc. It is necessary that I have a sensation of something when- 
ever I am sensing, for it is impossible that there be a sensing which 
is a sensing of nothing. For this something must be present to 
the person whenever sweet or bitter or any such arise. For it is 
impossible that anything should be sweet which is sweet to no 
one. 

Theaet. Entirely true. 

Soc. It follows then, I think, for us that with respect to being 
and becoming we both are and become one thing with reference 
to another, since our being is necessarily relative but not relative to 
any other [i.e. a third thing] nor to us ourselves. It results that 
there is a mutual relation. Thus whoever says anything is or be- 
comes something, he says it is or becomes to, of or with reference 
to something; he must neither say nor permit any one else to say 
that it either is or becomes anything of itself. This the argument 
which we have been expounding indicates. 

Theaet. Altogether true, Socrates. 

Soc. Then is it not true what acts upon me is relative to me 
and not to another and that I have a sensation of this [object] 
and not another person? 

Theaet. How could it be otherwise? 

Soc. Then my sensation is true to me — for it is always of my 
being — and I am judge, according to Protagoras, of the things 
which are [relative] to me, that they are, and of the things which 
are not, that they are not. 

Theaet. So it seems. 

Perception is a relation entered into between perceiver and per- 
ceived, a form of motion. The eyes and ears are the " highroads," to 
use Empedocles' term, over which this motion travels. Socrates bitterly 
tastes the embittered wine, while bitterness is the attribute of the sensa- 
tion as an operation. Accordingly " when I am sick, [the wine] in 
truth acts upon another and not the same person, for it affects one who 
is different," or, as Empedocles says {Fr. 108), " in so far as men grow 
to be different, so far it is their power to ^povdv other things." 

Plato has here cleverly laid the foundation on which to build his 
objections, i.e. the emphasis on the individuality and discreteness of 
perceptions. From this he thinks he can show the impossibility of judg- 
ments as to truth and error and its consequent ethical implications. We 
need some criterion and a soul to hold it, some " measure of things." 
We are not, however, here interested in the remaining details of Plato's 
argument as to how true and false opinion may be a false or correct 
identification between the memory image in the " block of wax " and a 
present perception. 



CHAPTER IV 

ARISTOTLE AND THEOPHRASTUS 
I 

" The cfjupvxov seems to differ from the axpvxov chiefly in two ways, i.e. 
motion and perception. These are approximately the two characteristics 
of the soul v/hich we have received from our predecessors " {De anima, 
403 b 25). Under these two headings Aristotle accordingly makes his 
attack on these predecessors. 

Hov/ can the soul be the self-mover, he asks? In which of the four 
ways could the soul move, i.e. locomotion, qualitative change, diminu- 
tion or augmentation ? For it would have to have a place of rest and be 
of such a nature as to be moved under constraint, " but what kind of 
forced motion and states of rest there can be of the soul, it is not easy 
to say even for one wishing to draw on his fancy " (406 a 25) . 

Not the least of his objections is that " they attach the soul to and 
place it in the body without demonstrating through what cause this comes 
about and how the body is in this relation. But this would seem to be 
necessary. For it is through their community [i.e. that of the soul and 
body] that the one acts while the other is acted upon, the one is moved 
while the other moves. Now nothing of the sort takes place between 
any two bodies which happen to come together. They only attempt to 
give an account of what sort the soul is, but they have nothing to say 
of the body which contains it just as in the Pythagorean myth any soul 
could happen to enter any body. But each [body] seems to have its own 
peculiar form and shape. This is just as if they talked of the transfer- 
ence of the craft of carpentry into a flute. For the craft must use its 
tools and the soul [in the same way] the body " (407 b 15). 

This is the natural and inevitable attack on the Platonic position as 
we have set it forth in Plato's arguments against the naturalists, but 
entirely irrelevant to the latter. The answer crudely put is that the 
soul is, in so far as it has the attributes of motion, and that the body 
is its seat of manifestation. If Aristotle in any way refers this to 
Empedocles (as perhaps he might have in relation to the blood as 
voTjfia) he is confusing a Platonic soul with a discussion of the way 
activity is transmitted throughout the body. The naturalists began in the 
way and place that Aristotle indicates as lacking. 



16 EMPEDOCLES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

Those who consider the soul primarily as knowing and perceiving,'^* 
Aristotle continues, identify it with their first principles, " for they not 
unreasonably assume the soul to be that amongst first principles or 
primary elements which is by its nature capable of causing motion " 
(Hicks' rendering, p. 226). This theory, Aristotle says, is based on 
the assumption that like is known by like. How then, he asks, can the 
soul know quantity and qualities, etc., unless it is composed of these 
two and how would it know complex things such as God or flesh unless 
it has their compounds? At the end of all these objections, he throws 
in inadvertently, "but they assume that perceiving is a sort of being 
aflfected (Trao-xftv) and being moved and so also thinking and knowing " 
(410 a 25). 

Aristotle makes one other point in connection with what he calls the 
definition of the soul as a harmony. We might ask Empedocles, he 
argues, " inasmuch as he says that each of these [parts] is in a certain 
proportion (Aoyos), whether the soul is a Adyos or does it rather arise 
in the parts of the body as a separate being ? " 

We gather, then, from Aristotle that Empedocles understood the 
process of alaOdveaOat to be affection and movement of a complex, definite, 
organic body. Aristotle's argument is that you can not get things into 
a -soul which is some place or thing, while he gives in his account a 
position entirely irrelevant to this argument, i.e., that perceiving is the 
relation of a complex organism to an object by way of the relation that 
holds between similars. 

II 

The fragment of Theophrastus, De Sensu et Sensibilibus, has been 
the chief source on Empedocles' psychology for modern historians of 
philosophy. It is without qualification the worst ! Theophrastus has 
taken two minor features — the question of likes or opposites affecting 
each other and the problem of " pores " — and from these he has written 
out a psychology. 

" There are many opinions with respect to sensation all of which can 
be reduced under two heads : some think it to be accomplished by like 
perceiving like, others by contraries. Parmenides, Empedocles and 
Plato by like, the followers of Anaxagoras and Heraclitus by contraries. 

" The former argue that different things are compared by their like- 
nesses and that it is innate in animals to recognize those of their own 
kind. Sensation is by an effluence in which case like is carried to like. 

" The others understand sensation to be by qualitative change. 
Anything is not affected [changed] by that which it resembles but the 

14 Cf. Zeller, Presoc. Vol. II, p. 167. 



ARISTOTLE AND THEOPHRASTUS 17 

Opposite, being affected by this, produces thought. They think that 
evidence is given in the fact that in the case of touch anything which 
is of the same temperature as the flesh is not felt " (Wimmer, p. 321). 

After this general introduction Theophrastus takes up each of the 
men separately.^^ " Empedocles speaks in the same way of all the 
senses, and says that perception is due to the ' effluences ' fitting into 
the passages of each sense. And that is why one can not judge the 
objects of another ; for the passages of some of them are too wide and 
those of others too narrow for the sensible object, so that the latter 
either goes through without touching or can not enter at all." In 
other words an atom of water running across another of its kin gets a 
friendly recognition or has a bright idea. 

Sight and smell he explains in detail, but sound is by a process 
altogether different from effluences and pores; taste and touch, he says, 
Empedocles failed to explain, although these would have been the 
easiest. 

Then conies a long attack, beginning with the objection that one can 
not, under this conception, differentiate the eij.\pvxa from other things 
with respect to sensation; then that thought and perception can not be 
differentiated; and finally raising some dialectical objections with 
respect to filled or empty pores and the denial of a vacuum. 

We have little or nothing to learn from Theophrastus, but it is 
interesting to note how he could pick out a minor point from the tra- 
dition, couple it with a description of the eye and work it up into a 
.discussion which, as we see, is far removed from even the Aristotelian 
account. 

15 Cf. Burnet, Early Greek Philos., p. 284, from whose translation the 
following is quoted. 



CHAPTER V 

THE DOXOGRAPHERS^° 

During Hellenistic and Roman times there was compiled a number 
of histories or collections of the opinions of previous philosophers. 
The three most important remnants which have come down to us are 
Diogenes Laertius' Lives and opinions of the philosophers, the Eclogae 
physicae of John Stobaios and the pseudo-Plutarchian Placita philoso- 
phorum. The latter is by far the most valuable. 

None of these authors had access to any original sources. Their 
relations to each other and to traditional predecessors has accordingly 
been a matter for extensive research. Diels {Doxographi graeci) 
traces them all ultimately back to the Eighteen books of physical 
opinions of Theophrastus of which the fragment, De sensu, treated 
above, is practically all that remains to us. 

This controversy does not in general concern us here, but in discuss- 
ing them as sources of our knowledge of early Greek philosophy I have 
thought it worth while to show at some length that these placita, as they 
have come down to us, are written from the point of view of the late 
Hellenistic philosophies. They have taken the topics of interest to 
controversialists of the late Stoic, Skeptic, Epicurean, and Peripatetic 
schools and shown what, with reference to their point of view, the 
earlier philosophers had to say. Those we have remaining are par- 
ticularly Stoic. If this can be shown, we can properly understand at 
least the kind of difficulties that lie in the way of properly interpreting 
the collections. Whether much is to be learned of the early Greek 
philosophy from these later interpretations may be doubtful, but at 
least we can determine on what basis the doxographers chose their 
material or left out that which was at hand. 

Further, I think that it will be apparent that this tradition did not 
come from Theophrastus, as Diels suggests, for it neither contains the 
same material as the fragment De sensu nor is it written from the same 
point of view. 

A mere superficial reading will show the great preponderance given 
to the late Stoic and to a less extent Epicurean doctrines themselves, 
as, e.g., the lengthy accounts in Diogenes Laertius. The important part 
played by Plato's Timaeus is also apparent and will be shown more in 
detail. 

16 Note especially the "Prolegomena" to Diels' Doxographi Graeci. 



THE DOXOGRAPHESS 19 

I 

The first and most striking evidence of the field of discussion in 
which these histories of philosophy were set out is to be found in a 
comparison of the tables of contents of Aetius' Placita, as found par- 
ticularly in the pseudo-Plutarchian Epitome {Placita philosophorum) , 
with those of Lucretius' De rerum tiatura, Sextus Empiricus' 
Pyrrhoniorum hypotyposeon, Book III, and Adversus Mathematicos, 
Book VIII, Chryssippus' Placita, and the detailed outline of Stoic 
doctrine in Diogenes Laertius, Book VII, and less clearly on Epicurus 
in Book X. The arrangement is analogous to that into which the 
Epicurean fragments fall as given by Usener, Epicurea, p. 169 sq., and 
those of Zeno and Cleanthes in Arnim, Vol. I. 

We have the three divisions of philosophy: Logica (Canonica), 
Physica, and Ethica, though only one or two of these divisions may be 
represented in any particular case. Plutarch gives this triple division 
in his introduction. The tables of contents are too long to be given 
here at length but we may in general note the following correspondences. 
Arnim (p. 110 sq.) arranges the physical section of Cleanthes' Placita 
as follows : 

B. Physica et Theologica 

1. Physica fundamenta 

2. De Mundo et meteoris 

3. De animalibus 

4. De anima hominis 

5. De fato 

6. De natura deoruni 

7. De providentia et divinatione 

The pseudo-Plutarchian Epitome shows signs of bad mixing and 
lacunae (e.g., Book IV: " Having taken a survey of the general parts 
of the world, I will take a view of the particular members of it." He 
then in the first section discusses the overflowing of the Nile and in 
subsequent chapters the soul and related subjects), but as the sections 
come to us we have the physicae fundamenta, de fato, and de natura 
deorum grouped together in the first section; Books II and III are de 
mundo et meteoris; de animalibus is represented in a jumbled condition 
in Book V and more satisfactorily in the Eclogae of Stobaeus, chapters 
42-7; finally de anima hominis occupies Book IV with the exception 
of the first chapter which is on the River Nile. The first and fourth 
books are the ones of chief importance for our purposes. 

The first book corresponds most nearly to the divisions into which 
Diogenes Laertius says the Stoics classify Natural Philosophy, " accord- 



20 EMPEDOCLES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

ing to species " : Trepl awixdrwv TOTTOV, Kal irtpl apx<»v, Kat cttoix^iwv Kai 

OcMv, KOI Teparm' /cat tottov, koI k€vov (VII, 132), and it corresponds much 
more minutely to the actual contents. The fourth and fifth books of 
Plutarch are to be compared with the third part of the Stoic division 
*' according to genera," i.e., 6 atrtoAoytKos, in which Diogenes Laertius 

says they inquire : Trepi re rov -qyeixoviKov rrj'i xj/vx'rj'i Kol T^^pi- tS>v €V ^vxfi 
yLVOfJi€V(ov, Kal Trept uirtpfidTOiv Kat twv ravrots o/xoiwv. 

Now more minutely. The general introduction to the pseudo- 
Plutarchian Epitome, which in our text is the introduction to the first 
book, starts out by quoting the Stoics on the divisions of philosophy, 
i.e., natural, moral, and logical. The Epitome is to be on the natural, i.e., 

Trepi Koapiov Kai twv iv Koafno. 

This use of natural philosophy is entirely un- Aristotelian. At the 
end of the introduction he gives what purports to be the Aristotelian 
division, i.e., theoretical and practical. He might possibly have gotten 
such a division out of Aristotle (cf. Metaph. A. I, 993 b 20), though it is 
not the regular triple division of Trpa/crt/cr/, Troty^rtK^, and OecoprjriKrj. What 
is more, it is entirely irrelevant to Plutarch's work. Apparently this 
was a later Peripatetic division, as, e.g., in Strato, who seems to have 
discussed " physics " and " ethics," including under the first the topics 
which we here find in Plutarch: primum Theophrasti Strato physicum 
se voluit, in quo etsi est tnagmis, tamen nova pleraque et perpauca de 
morihus (Cicero, Fin. V, 5, 13). i''' 

The introduction of the pseudo-Plutarch should be compared with 
Diogenes Laertius' introduction which also takes for granted the Stoic 

division : Mepij 8e c^tAoao^tas T/ota, s^V(nKOv, tjOikov, ZiaXeKTiKOv. (jivaLKOv pAv 
TO Trepi Kocxfiov, /cat twv iv aVTOJ. tjOlkov 8e, ro irepl ^iov koI t<ov Trpo? rjfjid';. 
otaAeKTtKoi' Be, to afxcpoTipcDV Tov<i Aoyors Trpea/Sevov (I, 18). 

The first chapter of the Epitome on " What is 4>vaLs" is most unin- 
telligibly confused. He quotes Aristotle to the effect that " 4>vm^ is the 
principle of motion and rest in a thing in which it exists principally 
and not by accident," a definition which corresponds roughly with 
Phys. II, 1, 192 b 14 (Cf. Metaph. A, IV). " For all things," Plutarch 
continues, " which are seen, as many as are neither by chance nor 
necessity nor are divine nor have any such cause are called cftvaiKa and 
have their ov^^n proper ^wt?, e.g. earth, fire, water, air, plants, animals 
and those things which arise as rain, hail, thunderbolts, lightning, 
winds. All these have some dpxr] and were not from eternity but arise 
from some dpxr]. So indeed animals and plants have a beginning of 
generation. <l>i'(7is is in these primarily the dpxri not only of motion but 

17 Cf. Zeller, who quotes Cicero, (Aristotle, Vol. II, p. 454). 



THE DOXOGRAPHERS 21 

also of rest. For whatever receives a beginning of motion this also 
can receive an end." 

This section gives us in a garbled way the latter field of discussion 
over (/>wis with an Aristotelian flavor, such a discussion as one would 
expect to find in Strato, and so Cicero gives it: nee audiendus eius 
[Theophrasti] auditor Strato, is qui ' physicus' appellatur, qui omnem 
vim divinam in natura sitam esse censet, quae causas gignendi augendi 
minuendi habeat, sed car eat omni sensu et figura (De deor. nat. I 35). 

For Epicurus we have Plutarch, adv. Coloten (Usener, 74), ev apxo 

oe T?}s Trpay/Aareta? VTrenrwv rrjv tmv 6vto)v (jivacv crw/xara eivat kol kcvov ws iJLia.<y 
ovo-rj<; £ts Svo TreTrotT/rai t^v Siaiptcnv, . . . ^^ 

The Stoics called the four elements naturae. (Cicero, de deor. nat,, 
II, 32, 84). 

The second chapter is entitled, nVt Sta^e'pet dpx^ ^al a-Tocxda. It starts 
with the assertion that Plato and Aristotle so differentiated. 
This might well hold for Plato's " Timaeus (Tim. 53 C-D,, Cf, 
Phaedr. 246 C), but certainly does not for Aristotle who con- 
sidered the elements as a kind of apxal {Metaph. 5 A 1, 1013 a 2D). 
Diogenes Laertius, however, at the beginning of his account of Stoic 
natural philosophy (VII, 134) writes, 8ia</)epetv 8e <j)a(nv [i.e. the Stoics] 

dp^as /cat arot^eta. to.? [lev yap dvat ay evrjTOv; <(Kat^ a(f)udpTOV^, ret oe 
CTTOix^la Kara rrjv iKTrvpwaiv (pOelpeadat. 

At the end of the section Plutarch says, " For there are some things 
prior to earth and water from which these come, i.e. rj v\r] afiop(f>6<; ovaa 
Kal detS^? KOI TO elSos, o KaXov[Jiev evreAexetav Kal rj crrepTycrts. These are 
Aristotelian terms all right, though Aristotle never so gives a list of 
apxai. We find in Diogenes Laertius on the Stoics (VII, 139; Arnim^ 
300) , BoKel S' ovTols dp^a? elvai tw oAwv 8vo, to iroiovv Kal to Trao^ov. ro p.tv 
ovv iraaypv €lvai tt/v airoLov ovaiav, TrjvvXrjv' to 8e iroiovv rov iv avTrj \oyov, tov 
6e6v and Seneca, dicunt, ut scis, Stoici nostri: duo esse in rerum 
natura, ex quibus omnia fiant, causam et materiam, materia iacet iners, 
res ad omnia parata, cessatura, si nemo moveat, causa autem, id est 
ratio, materiam format ... (Ep. 65, 2 — Arnim, 303). 

The fourth chapter of Plutarch is an original rather than historical 
discussion of how the koV/aos arose. It is a typically late discussion and 
parallels Lucretius (V, 416 sq.), detail for detail. 

The gist of Chapter VI on " Whence men derive their knowledge of 
the Gods," is that it is first from nature, secondly from myths and 
thirdly from the laws. This is the famous Stoic ^^ argument from 
nature and common consent. Nee ulla gens, says Seneca {Ep. 117^), 

18 Note also quotation from Sextus Emp. on Epicurus (Usener, 76). 
i^ Cf. Arnold, (Roman Stoicism, p. 223 sq.), who gives quotations. 



22 EMPEDOCLES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

usquam est a deo extra leges moresque projecta, ut non aliquos deos 
credat; and Cicero deor. nat. II 6, 17: tantum vero ornatum mundi, 
tantum variatatem pulchritudinemque rerum caelestium . . . si non 
d&orum immortalium domicilium putes, nonne plane desipere videare? 



II 

Plato's Timaeus was the work which attracted the notice of the 
schools which followed him and its doctrines come down to us through 
all subsequent tradition. Aristotle bases his criticism of Plato in the 
De Anima on this dialogue and it was, significantly enough, the only 
one of Plato's works preserved to the medieval schools. 

Its peculiar doctrines have been the cause of many attempts to recon- 
cile them with the rest of the Platonic canon, even to the extent of the 
dialogue being considered spurious.^^ 

It is therefore interesting for us to note that the Placita of Aetius is 
practically dependent on this dialogue, or some source familiar with it, 
for its account of Plato's philosophy. We give here the parallels in the 
first part of the Placita and will speak of Book IV below : 

Placita, Book I 

Chapter 2 Timaeus, 53C-D. Cf. Phaedrus, 246C 

Chapter 3 Timaeus, 28-9, 51 sq. Cf. Cratylus, 389-90 

Chapter 5 Timaeus, 31. Cf. 32D and 33 

Chapter 7 Timaeus, 52 

Chapter 9 ...Timaeus, 52C, 50; 49A; SOD. Cf. Arist 

Phys. 4A3, 209bl0 

Chapter 10 Timaeus, 29 

Chapter 11 From the general position of the Timaeus. 

Cf. Philebus, 28, 30 
Chapter 12 Timaeus, 63D-E, 49; 52. Cf. Arist. Phys. 

4A2, 209bl0 

Chapter 17 Timaeus, 56 

Chapter 19 Timaeus, 49 sq. Cf. Arist. Phys. 4A2, 209bl0 

Chapter 21 Timaeus, 37D 

Chapter 22. Timaeus, 38B, 37D (direct quotation) 

Chapter 25 Timaeus, 47E. Cf. Laws, 904 

Chapter 26 Timaeus, 47 sq. 

Chapter 27 Timaeus, 47. Cf. Laws, 904 (N.B.) 

Chapter 29 Laivs,^%9 

20 Cf. Ladevi-Roche, Le vrai et le faux Platon ou le Timee demonstre 
apocryphe, Paris, 1867. 



THE DOXOGRAPHERS 23 

Book II 

Chapter 4 Timaeus, ZZ (Contra Laws, X) 

Chapter 5 Timaeus, ZZC 

Chapter 6.. Timaeus, 31-2, 34, 52D; 53C, 55 sq. 

Chapter 7 Timaeus 

Chapter 9 Timaeus, 80C 

Chapter 10 Timaeus, 62 

Book I, Chapter 8, " On daemons and heroes," is not from the 
Timaeus nor relevant to it (perhaps Republic, 427B or Laws, 717B). 

Ill 

These are the chief general discussions of the first book and sufficient 
to show the kind of topical arrangement we have been discussing. We 
now turn to the fourth book which more immediately concerns us. 
Here we find the Stoic epistemological position with an Epicurean 
mechanism of sense perception, together with some peculiar statements 
attributed to Plato. 

In Hellenic philosophy the soul and its activities, sensation, etc., are 
discussed under two separate branches. The soul in general comes 
under physics as a part of zoology, so to speak, while most of the discus- 
sion of sensation and knowing is included in dialectics. This is 
significant inasmuch as it marks the epistemological interest. 

Now Plutarch has the conventional divisions : on the soul, its parts, 
sensation in general, and the special senses. In addition he gives two 
chapters which come from the dialectical division, one on : el ak-qdeh at 
al(T67]aeL<s kol (j>avTaai&L ; the Other tlvl Siaipipei (pai'Tacrid cj^arraa-TOi' 
<j>avTaaTLK6v (l)dvTa(Tixa. This should be compared with Diogenes 
Laertius on the Stoics (VII, 49 sq.) : " The Stoics choose first to give 
an account of <j)avTaata and a'ia0rjai<; as this is the criterion by which they 
know the truth of things." This discussion found an important place 
in Crysippus' Placita (Arnim, Vol. II, p. 21 sq.) prior to the discussion 
of sensation and gives the epistemological setting to the whole. 

Of the five sections on sensation or the senses in general two are 
entirely given over to the Stoics (11 and 21) and the rest begin with 
their doctrines (8, 9 and 10). Chapter fifteen on the visibility of dark- 
ness is also occupied with Stoical doctrines. The other philosophers 
mentioned in these general sections are Empedocles, Leucippus, 
Democritus, Plato, and Heraclides. In the case of the special senses 
the Stoics are not mentioned, but we find here Alcmaeon, Empedocles, 
Democritus and Leucippus, and Plato. 

The Platonic definition of the soul in the passage is from Timaeus, 



24 EMPEDOCLES' PSYCHOLOGICAL DOCTRINE 

34C sq?'^ The definition of sensation attributed to Plato, i/'ux^s koL 
iTwfiaTo<; Kotvwvtav Trpos to, ckto's, might have come from the Timaeus or 
elsewhere. The argument for the immortality of the soul that " when 
it departs, it goes to the soul of the universe which is of the same 
nature" might have been derived from the Timaeus {Cf. 90 sq.) ; it 
certainly is not in harmony with the teaching given in the Phaedo and 
elsewhere. 

In this setting the only pre-Socratic philosophers who get noticed to 
any extent with respect to the soul and its activities are Empedocles and 
Alcmaeon.22 Plutarch asks certain questions and gives the following 
answers for Empedocles: 

Where is the soul situated? 
It arises in the blood. 

Are sensations and imaginations true? 

Sensations arise in every case through a symmetry of the 
pores, that which is peculiar to a particular sense being 
adapted to it. 

Concerning sight. 

The rays (of the eyes) (oIktis) are mingled with the images 
(etSwAa), and the resultant is called aKTiv-dhwXov. 

Concerning hearing. 

Hearing is caused by the striking of the air on the cartilage 
which hangs on the inside of the ear like a bell and is struck 
upon. 

Concerning smell. 

The scents are introduced into the inhalations of the lungs, for 
whenever breathing is difficult one can not smell readily as in 
the case of a cold in the head. 

It must be obvious that we have little to learn from this account, for 
the reason that Empedocles had nothing to say on the Stoic problem. 
The thing to be guarded against, however, is not the slight accounts of 
the mechanism of perception, but the taking of this exposition as a 
representation of the naturalistic position with respect to man and 
his activities. Writing from Plutarch's point of view nothing oY 
importance could be said of this early Greek philosophy. 

21 Cf. note by Hicks, Tim. p. io6. 

22 Stobaeus has some additional opinions, especially those attributed to the 
Peripatetics. 



THE DOXOGRAPHEKS 25 

It remains also to be pointed out that at least this part of the P lac it a 
has no relation to Theophrastus' De sensu. In his work Theophrastus 
presents a very striking doctrine which is not here represented. We 
hear nothing of likes and opposites. Even in detail the accounts are 
not similar as is especially marked in the explanation of sight which is 
quite different in the two works.^^ 

23 Theophrastus, De sensu (Burnet, Early Greek Philos., 1892, p. 264) and 
Plutarch, Book IV, 13. 



CHAPTER VI 

SUMMARY 

The main points which we have attempted to estabhsh are briefly : 

I. Starting from the position that Empedocles based his cosmic 
philosophy on a universe of ultimate elements, one of whose immanent 
properties — the attraction of like for like — was a source of motion and 
development, we cited the terminology of the fragments to establish 
the thesis that the development and activities of man were ultimately 
motivated by this universal principle in the elements, but immediately 
controlled and directed by the specific form or arrangement of the 
human organism. The elements, put together in certain forms or 
organisms, react in certain definite ways when the organism is brought 
into relation to other things. Life is an activity latent in the elements 
and in the complex structure of man; perception and thought are 
specific activities induced in the organism by contact with its environ- 
ment through the senses. The sense organs are the routes through 
which contact is maintained between the human organism and the outside 
world. 

n. The first assumption that the ultimate source of activity lies in 
the roots of things is corroborated by Plato, as is the conception of man 
as an aggregate of a certain form, which form determines his life and 
reactions. Perception is a form of motion, of activity, entered into by 
perceiver and perceived, determined by the form or condition of both. 
The relativity of knowledge involved is, for Plato, not to be enter- 
tained — whence Plato's argument for the soul as the primal source of 
motion. 

in. From Aristotle's inadvertencies we also learn that perception 
for Empedocles was an affection and movement of an organic body, 
resting ultimately on a principle of motion inherent in the first elements. 
Aristotle is burdened, however, with the word " soul " in his discussion 
of the early philosophy, inconsistently attacking a Platonic meaning 
of soul. 

IV. From Aristotle's successors we learn nothing about Empedocles. 
The Doxographers wrote with reference to what the earlier philosophers 
had to say, pro and con, of certain problems which occupied Hellenistic 
philosophy. Philosophical terms and the Greek language in general 
had acquired new meanings by this time. It is as though we should 



SUMMARY 27 

quote Aristotle on " matter " and " energy " as defined in a twentieth 
century text-book of physics, considering his terms vXr} and kvepyua to 
have a twentieth century meaning. Most of the doxographical back- 
ground is Stoic. Their Platonic philosophy was derived from the 
Timaeus. Whence they obtained their material on Empedocles is not 
evident, but it was apparently not from Theophrastus. 



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